Kathy,
My gas convection oven is a Maytag, and is identical in all functional
respects to one of the Jenn-Air models. I believe that they're actually
made by the same company. I'm not sure that the model number will help
anyone, since they aren't generally visible on appliances or in the stores.
I can describe it, which might help. The two key features are that there
are 5 burners on the top and the size of the oven. The largest runs 16,000
BTU, which is huge for a non-commerical model, and the fifth one is a small
burner right in the centre. As to the oven size, they have sacrificed
almost all of the drawer space at the bottom to make an oven which is big
enough to have three shelves in it. It is also somewhat larger in cross
section than my older oven. I have a commercial style jellyroll pan which
wouldn't fit into my old oven but does fit into this one. Honestly though,
Maytag or Jenn-Aire with 5 burners and convection should narrow it down to
the exact model.
I thought my old electric convection was good, but this one is way, way
better. There isn't any need that I've seen so far to turn things when the
convection is turned on. I guess they've got the air swirling around more
evenly, and avoided having a hot blast going straight onto the food. The
fan also turns off when the door is opened, which is really good if you are
trying to make steam. The fan is also much quieter than my last oven. This
is a beautiful oven, and I've had nothing but good results with it to
date. To be honest, I haven't tried baking bread in convection mode, but
I'm curious now how bread with/without convection/steam will compare.
I'm also curious, now I think about it, about Yorkshire pudding in this
convection oven. In my old one, the top hardened too fast with the
convection on. The result was that the puddings didn't get a chance to
rise as much as they should.
I can't conceive of why you'd need to vent a convection oven outside, gas
or not. There was nothing special, other than the usual gas stuff to
install this one. There are appliances that use gas on top, electric in
the oven, but I can't see why you'd bother. I'm mostly ambivalent to
whether or not the oven is gas or electric. I will say that the only
difference I've really noticed is that the broiler is ready instantly,
where my electric took several minutes for the elements to heat up. You
might get more even heat on the broil once the roof of the oven has had a
chance to heat up and start radiating on its own, but I haven't found this
to be necessary.
Dave Barrett